Budget cuts, the absence of Roddenberry and Coon, the "Freidberger effect", Shatner's penchant for over-acting seemingly at a high point and some quirky moments where our characters seemed to step out of character based on script, S3 grows on me more and more.

There are some excellent stories and concepts from S3 that are among my favorites of the whole series. And there are some episodes that although very good, had they been done in S1 they would have perhaps had enough breathing space to make them fantastic (The Enterprise Incident)

I happen to love these ones, flawed as they be to some:

Spectre of the Gun
The Tholian Web
All Our Yesterdays
The Paradise Syndrome
The Enterprise Incident